Marcus Hunter: We must manifest a disciplinary and professional agenda that seeks to reconcile and repair the racial and intellectual injuries endured by Black and Brown scholars, from Du Bois to Horace Cayton to current sociologists of color subjected to the cynicism and dismissiveness similar to that which hovered Du Bois’ life and scholarship. Du Bois’ life and sociology reveal that understanding, conveying, and centering the Black experience does NOT limit our science. Rather, the intellectual and material category of ‘Black’ is a powerful tool for measuring and apprehending the social world.
I take stock in Du Bois’ personal and professional example not only because he thrived and survived in the post-Emancipation academy, but also because the patterns of mistreatment and diminishing of Black scholars and Black scholarship persists. There are still departments across our great discipline, for example, where students and professors are racial pioneers—the first of something in something somewhere where they are the token or marginal minority.
[…] Unlike Du Bois, many scholars of color cannot and are not able to endure these same racial and intellectual injuries. Nor should they have to. When we reduce the voices we include, we do damage to our profession and many scholars and students die. Many scholars of color leave the discipline in the quiet of the night, unnoticed and easily forgotten. Others perish due to the intellectual, political, economic and physical tolls of being treated in ways similar to which Du Bois experienced. This reality is the true problem for the discipline in the 21st Century. For all of the colored scholars considering suicide, our rainbows are enough for they are patterned with the blood, sweat and tears of the elders. Thank you Professor William Edward Burghardt Du Bois. We are because you are.
